“I don’t see anything at all,” said Thisbe. “And the other door is the left door if you face the opposite direction down the hallway. So it’s confusing. Which way was Mr. Today standing when he made that spell?”

Fifer sighed. She got up and crossed the hallway to examine that door, and scoured its surface for several moments. “I don’t see anything here, either.”

“Neither of you has tiny eyes,” Florence remarked.

“No one I know of has tiny eyes,” argued Fifer, “so there’s not much we can do about that.”

They searched a moment more. “Maybe we have to look farther down,” said Thisbe. “It said stoop low, right? I assumed that meant to look below the handle, but maybe the clue is lower.”

Fifer squinted and crouched, letting her eyes trace invisible lines across the entire door, dropping a little lower with each pass. “Still nothing.”

“Same here,” said Thisbe.

Fifer lay down on her stomach and squinted, looking for any sort of irregularity. “I see a scratch in the wood,” she said. “And there’s a little piece broken off the bottom corner.”

“Is anything written there?”

“Not that I can see.” She paused. “This is ridiculous. Who on earth has tiny eyes that Mr. Today would be referring to?”

“Who knows,” said Thisbe. “It could totally be someone who no longer lives here. He could have written that book fifty years ago for all we know.”

They kept at it. As Fifer rolled to her side, she felt something move in her hip pocket. She quickly lifted her body up, and Kitten pushed her way out.

“Mewmewmew,” said Kitten angrily.

“I’m sorry if I crushed you!” Fifer replied. “I forgot you were in there.”

Kitten folded her front paws and looked away in disdain.

Florence glanced over. And then she blinked. “Oh,” she said. “Tiny eyes. I think we found our mystery helper.”

Tiny Eyes

Of course!” cried Fifer. “How could we forget Kitten?”

The itty-bitty porcelain feline rolled her tiny eyes. This was not the first time the Unwanteds had forgotten that she existed. “Mewmewmew,” she said, sounding sarcastic.

“What does that mean?” Thisbe asked. “We need Simber to translate.”

“I’m not sure we want to know that bit,” said Florence. “She seems angry. You two try to explain to Kitten what we’re looking for. I’ll go trade places with Simber and send him up here.”

Soon Kitten was prancing around in front of the door, looking for clues and feeling important once again now that she knew Mr. Today had singled her out for this significant clue. She searched the door on the right first, where Fifer was. Mewing, but finding nothing, she and the twins moved to the door on the left. This time Kitten sniffed thoroughly, pointing out a small space under it, which the other door didn’t have. Kitten peered up.

“I’m sure there’s got to be something here,” Fifer said to Thisbe. Then: “Kitten, can you see underneath?”